stone faced
by robin hoods
Summary: Looking after the village was a task that came with the title of Hokage, Minato knew. What he didn't know was that it was something he'd continue doing, even after death. Takes place post the invasion of Pein.


**Title:** stone faced  
**Summary: **Looking after the village was a task that came with the title of Hokage, Minato knew. What he didn't know was that it was something he'd continue doing, even after death.  
**Notes:** This is a fairly stupid idea I came up with when I was writing a fic back in 2007. The Hokage heads were a fairly integral part of the story (which I personally though was hilarious). Unfortunately, I lost that story, but I didn't forget about this tidbit.

* * *

"This is your fault," Hashirama stubbornly said.

"_My_ fault?" Tobirama exclaimed. "I seem to recall a conversation where you said, and I quote, 'Don't worry, Tobirama, everything's going to be fine.' And look at what happened."

"In Hashirama's defense, technically you're already dead," Minato added, blanching slightly when the two brothers glared at him at the same time. "I mean, we're stone heads. The only way we could theoretically die is if someone managed to destroy the mountain."

"There's no need to remind us of that," Tobirama said.

"It's quite unfortunate, really," Hashirama said, and looked sad for a moment – as sad as a stone face could look, anyway. "Although it was nice, to see the village thrive for a while."

"Key word, was," Tobirama continued. "Have you seen what those assholes in cloaks did to our village? They completely leveled it!"

"Now now, there's no need for squabling," Hiruzen finally intervened. "We should just wait and see what the Hokage does. I have complete faith in Tsunade." All of them glanced to their left, where the face of Tsunade rested unmovingly.

"She's going to be pissed when she realises she'll be stuck with us for eternity," Minato said thoughtfully.

"Well, at least I'll have the chance to have a nice conversation with my granddaughter," Hashirama said. "Ugh, I feel old."

"You are old, old man," Tobirama said.

"You're my brother, if I'm old, so are you!"

They bickered back and forth for a while, and both Hiruzen and Minato sighed. "I'm just glad Naruto managed to stop them," Minato said. "Even if it required my own intervention to do it."

"One day, you'll have to tell me how you did it," Hiruzen said. "It was quite fascinating to watch – and I have to admit, you were, and still are, the best person to succeed me after I retired."

"I'm glad you're here," Minato admitted, "at least you're the voice of reason. I had to listen to these two for years before you showed up."

"Well," the Third Hokage said. He didn't have much of an answer to that. On the other hand, he knew how Minato felt. The two Senju brothers rehashed most of their conversations at least once a day. Minato knew most arguments about the Senju and Uchiha by heart now, and if he heard anything more about it he swore he would remove his own head from the mountain if it would kill him. Even though, technically, he was already dead.

Ah, he remembered the day he saw Naruto close up quite vividly. Of course, his face was in the process of being violated at that point, but hey, it was his son, who was he to complain? (Of course neither Hashirama nor Tobirama would shut up for a single second during the entire ordeal, because they thought his son couldn't draw to save his life, and didn't he know this type of paint didn't work on rocks? Minato respected his fellow Hokage greatly, but sometimes they were a bunch of children.)

In any case, Minato appreciated that he could oversee the village even after his death. The reason for his existence had something to do with an accidental jutsu of Hashirama, who had, apparently sealed part of his soul into the mountain (Minato didn't want to know how that worked) and somehow, the same had been true for all following Hokage, once they had taken their oath to protect the village and so on.

There was only one downside to it. They had no way of communicating with the village. It didn't matter how loudly they shouted, no one heard them. Minato had given up a while ago.

To be honest, he couldn't wait for the day his own son would become Hokage: it meant that they would have all the time in the world, later.


End file.
